h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, perhaps it wasn't entirely the fault of Star Wars. I had been tired all day, sleeping for at least three hours of the five-and-a-half hours I was "plumbed in" for dialysis, but I barely managed to watch the forst hour of "Star Wars Episode III" before I had to drag myself to bed, at 10PM!

Generally, I was knackered all day. I managed to stay awake through an episode of "Andromeda" when I got home, but "Star Wars Episode III" finished me off.

"Did you fight in the Clone Wars"

- I'm not sure, but I /think/ this is a line from Episode III.


Perhaps it was Anakin to Ben Kenobi or one of the kids to Ben Kenobi, I dunno. Isn't III the one that starts off with... no, that's a different one. I was going to say the big race. I think that's II.

It's all a blur now.

It's actually from Episode IV, "A New Hope", and it was Luke Skywalker talking to Ben Kanobe on Tattooine.

It was the one line they based the entire three prequels on.

Oh right, thanks for that. My goodness - I thought the line was either in the new movies, OR if it had been in IV, that they had edited it in, to suit the agenda driving I-III. So it was like that, was it? My goodness. Thanks for that.

"Kanobe" - Obi-Wan wasn't a Zimbabwean, Peet.

Have you had a go at tracking down the Indiana Jones movies yet? I think they would go down well in your home cinema with a pint by your side.

Not yet; I've been rather busy. I need to adjust my projector - I don't know how, but it will involve a ladder and possibly a piece of string - but yes, I am looking forward to the movies. How many are there? Can you list them in chronological order?

Thanks

dagesh

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

...and, released something like twenty years later...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The first three are particularly impressive, because they are all pre-CGI, so what you see (other than a bit of Ray Harrehausen-style animation at the end of the first one) all actually happened in front of the camera! The fourth one starts off the same way, but because of the plot the last quarter is almost entirely CGI.

Am ... preparing for a watching of the first movie as I write. The Entz Machine has a USB external drive plugged into the back, and that's where all the data are. In fact this machine (the Ultrabook) has a cable plugged into the left hand USB, and that leads down to the floor under a table, where it terminates in a hub; I've got an external plugged into the hub, to ease the pressure on the internal SSD. There's also a cable plugged into the hub to connect my phone to the computer, so I can easily transfer pictures from it to the internet.

Because the curtains are always closed in here, and the room is permanently lit by artificial lighting, and because the projector is a good one, I can watch movies at any time of the day or night, because my den is the same 24/7, it doesn't matter what time of the day or night it is in here - it's a refuge from the world even to that extent, that you can't tell easily whether it's day or night! (In practice you look at the ceiling where the curtain doesn't quite reach the ceiling, and you can see vestiges of daylight between the top of the curtains and the ceiling.)

So that I woke up at a quarter to twelve last night, after a strange sleep I wasn't expecting, and I didn't know whether it was day or night until I checked at on the ceiling.

In fact I think your Command Centre has the same feature of being a 24/7 room, unaffected by daylight or nighttime. Cool isn't it ;0)

THE INTERNET NEVER SLEEPS...

I notice it has music by John Williams, which is always a plus. Directed by Spielberg and story by Lucas, which means one should be on the lookout for Illuminati meanings and symbols. A girl at Aberdeen University once told me I looked like Harrison Ford.
I don't like the spiders...

Really don't like the spiders.

It's actually a bit hectic for me... I really don't like danger or suspense in movies. I don't mind it in Doctor Who because you know the Doctor's indestructible (for BBC reasons). But in movies, oooh noo..

They said the Hebrews took the broken pieces of the tablets of stone, and put them in the Ark. I haven't checked it up, but Moses had a second pair of tablets made to replace the ones he smashed at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 34:1); and I believe these are the tablets they put into the Ark (which was basically a wooden box overlaid with gold).

But they are saying that "the army that carries the Ark before it is invincible" - as if the Ark were some kind of magic box, independent of the God of the Ark. Which is bollshyte - God isn't like that, he isn't a magician.

"No-one knows its secrets..."

The movie is based on a pretty anti-God presupposition.

0b1 kn 0b; r2d2; c3p0




I've often thought the 'Angel in the box' special effects from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" may have been inspired by an electrophorus storm in the open desert surrounding the greater Palm Springs area, vertical plumes of sand rising as much as a couple of thousand feet in still air, until the electrostatic force can no longer support the weight of the column and the column collapses, generating fierce and violent winds, a case where electrostatic force drives the sand and the sand drives the winds.

Woofti, once you've seen the first one, you might "get" this: A963939

Ooooh, spooky. I just noticed that the first one, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is on BBC3 tonight! They list it as "a celebration of the more innocent adventure movies of an earlier era".

I've just noticed that the friend of Jabba who stops Han from leaving the bar at the end of the first scene we see him in, speaks a language using the Xhosa "x" click.

What is it with the obsession with arms being cut off in the Star Wars movies? I watched them all back to back once and noticed very clearly that Lucas has a thing about arms and forearms.

Too clever for me, Peet. I don't get it

A Jedi can feel the force flowing through him.

I think the Empire Strikes Back has better quotes than this one.

When you get round to watching the second Indiana Jones, note the name of the club he goes into at the start...